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Lecondel

8:24 PM, Apr 3, 2008 • By MICHAEL GOLDFARB
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The Economist reports:

In the wake of Condoleezza Rice's shuttle diplomacy last year, Israeli officials reportedly coined lecondel, meaning to go back and forth repeatedly to no effect.

Rice devoted herself to the peace process and has nothing to show for it. In Iraq, the Pentagon has made more progress in the last year (see Fred Kagan's latest on Iraqi benchmarks for a status report) than the State Department has made in Israel in the last 20. Surely Condi's considerable talents might have been better put to use furthering that mission. And at least nobody's mocking Petraeus for being ineffectual--or they aren't anymore.

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